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Prior to last week's opening of PostSecret: The Show at Booth Playhouse, the only theatre production I'd ever seen based on a website was My First Time, which I first disliked Off-Broadway in 2008 before a less repellent version played here at Actor's Theatre in 2010. So the idea of transforming a website into a stage presentation is neither new nor thunderously popular. But the new show, workshopped in Cincinnati and presented by Blumenthal Performing Arts, is a far worthier enterprise - and it doesn't misrepresent the site that inspired it.

MyFirstTime.com was - and is - a salacious site whose seasoned users are likely to take voyeuristic pleasure in the reminiscences posted there, while newbies might be motivated to lose their virginities post haste. Ken Davenport not only dredged up a few tender and romantic posts from what he must have perceived as a cesspool of thousands, he gave his gleanings a decidedly Christian tang that decried and punished pre-marital sex. Quite a hoot when you see that the homepage bears the Playboy Bunny seal of approval.

PostSecret.com was started by Frank Warren, one of four writers who collaborated on the script, so PostSecret: The Show loses nothing in translation. In fact, it gains. While the MyFirstTime site has a ratty, monochromatic look, all print on a parchment background, PostSecret is arty because Warren is posting postcards, most commonly photos and greeting cards that have been altered by anonymous confessions affixed to these media with sharpies or pasted type like a ransom note. An animation team gives the cards added pizzazz, so they have the pop of a PowerPoint presentation when they're projected rather than simply lying on the page as they do online.

The writing team doesn't merely mine the juiciest secrets Warren has received by snail mail over the past decade, they also delve into PostSecret's chat room and exhume some of the secrets that sparked the most provocative and heartwarming responses. These makeshift forums and dialogues are where the cast of three actors are most invaluable. The "community" section also seems to spawn the longest narratives, somehow exclusively by women, so Birgit Darby and Kerry Ipema are excelling more than JR Adduci.

Darby and Ipema also seem more comfortable addressing the audience, although it's Adduci who is most involved in the audience interaction. It's a wonder that any of these performers appears relaxed under the stiff and unimaginative stage direction of co-writer TJ Dawe, whose bio boasts extensive experience writing and performing autobiographical monologues but none directing them. Just being spontaneous doesn't seem to be an option when performers, starting from a fixed spot, are called upon to step forward or traverse the stage, deliver their lines, and return to their places.

If PostSecret: The Show is headed for a national tour or for New York, Blumenthal could find more than a couple of directors right here in town who could do a far superior job.

There's also a segment, soon after intermission, that obliges the cast to deceive the audience - not the best way to dispel performance anxiety. Purporting to read audience secrets gathered from a mailbox in the Booth lobby where we've deposited our postcards, Ipema read the same postcard to kick off the bit and Darby read the same finisher both times I attended, and at least one other card sounded familiar in between.

Such chicanery further degrades the product, but on balance, I liked The Show. Though they needn't have, I was gratified to find that Adduci, Darby, and Ipema had all refreshed their own personal secrets the second time I saw them. While the site's motto, "Free your secrets and become who you are," probably overstates the benefit of posting most of the time, the actors and the AV make a solid case for a more modest takeaway.

Over and over, writers of the secrets that flash onto the screen above the actors have learned that they are not alone - a realization that happens spontaneously at the Booth as people in the audience inwardly recognize a secret onscreen that they've never divulged. Apparently, the most universal at Warren's site, we learn early on, are variants of "I pee in the shower."

Even when secrets are less universal, confessors can be deluged with sympathy, empathy, and even unsolicited financial help. Darby's most effective monologues were written by a woman who had suffered from mental illness and by a mother who, after giving her daughter one of the PostSecretbooks collected from the site, suffered the heartbreak of learning that both her daughters had been molested by her husband. Ipema told a couple of more positive stories, one about an anorexic teen who couldn't submit her secret to PostSecret.com but wore it instead on a tee-shirt to school. The other is an episode occasioned by a card posted by someone who intended to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge.

With a pre-show and intermission Twitter feed - plus a selfie instigated by Adduci during the break - we're reminded how much more communicative and intrusive our lives have become, interacting night and day with the cloud. But Post Secret: The Show also demonstrates how near at hand feedback, empathy, community, and healing can be when the ventilating of human suffering happens within the right architecture. Warren, the Steve Jobs of empathy, has obviously cared about getting it right.

Some hearty belly laughs are also dispensed during the 104-minute show, at no extra charge.

Is the point of this post to share our favorite Post Secret things or for people to actually post their secrets? Because if someone is dumb enough to admit to sleeping with their step dad or cousin or their dog again, I will stay up for the next three hours for this post.

last weekend I slept with the guy who broke my heart three years ago. it was the first time we saw each other since then, and he's still in a relationship with the girl he left me for. I'm planning on telling her.

I slept with my exgirl who she basically backstabbed me wanting to fuck and date some loser guy. she is dating him and i fucked her. but i was emotionally unstable and miserable that time. she stole my confidence and stuff. anyway, i didn't tell him and it makes me feel SO GOOD!Don't tell. Or use the information later))))Sorry for tmi

tbh what do you expect will happen if you do that? he's probably not going to come back to you and why would you want him to? unless you're just doing it to be vindictive.... but it was 3 years ago, sometime you just have to move on hun. <3

Yeah, he's an ass for breaking up with you and for cheating on his now-girlfriend but of course they're in a relationship still. It's only been a week. Figure out how you want to tell her but tbh they're likely to break up along a similar vein in the near future; history often repeats itself. Tell her then

Unfortunately, I did something similar recently (hooking up with an ex who is attached). Honestly, I'm deeply ashamed and told him I know what it's like to be hurt with him and didn't want to help him do the same to someone else. Maybe I'm wrong but I'm thinking you wanting to tell might be about gaining the upper hand back in some way? I'm struggling with that too but the truth is, it isn't about her. I think most of my upset stems from the fact that I let someone so cruel back into my life in a moment of weakness (make no mistake, I was a willing participant. He didn't need to set a trap, I walked into it without a backwards glance). And even though I don't want to be with him anymore AT ALL, it still stings knowing he'd rather stay in his miserable relationship (by his own admission) then try to make things right with me. Full disclosure: he was awful to me and I don't think either of us wants to go back to that so it does make sense, we're completely incompatible, but still ... ANYWAY, I don't want people to know because it's not a reflection of the person I am. It was wrong and I'm choosing to move on.

i'm in a similar situation now and part of me wants to tell her but i don't want to deal with all the backlash...i didn't know he had a gf at the time though and i think they might have broken up after i confronted him so probably not worth it anyway

My sister was a youth pastor and my parents are the pastors of this evangelical church and sometimes we'd have church services at these people's ranch. I smoked pot with some of her youth group and had gay sex in the woods with one of the 18 year old youths.

Who's the QT in your icon btw and why is it not Superior Cutie Jamie Dornan? Your username seemed familiar and I think I take note of it because I'm used to seeing my Calvin Klein future lover in your icon ;)